Happy National (stupid, boring, old fashioned) Marriage Week

Marriage is stupid. Why would we promise to love, honor and cherish till death do us part when we actually know we can get a divorce just because we want one and no one will throw stones? No one is committed to staying if the relationship is abusive or if your partner won’t get help with their addiction or if their partner cheats. We make promises but we also believe that people deserve to be happy and that staying together for the kids’ sake isn’t good for anyone. What do we mean by a vow anyway? Maybe we mean we’ll give it our best. Maybe we mean we really hope this works. Maybe we have no idea what marriage means on that day and no one can explain it to us and we do it anyway. Maybe nothing is more optimistic than promising to love someone forever.

Marriage is old fashioned. You know the history. Marriage is about the church legitimizing your kids and protecting inheritance. It is about business and property and hierarchy. And it is about having rights. Marriage changes who your next of kin is. It turns someone into family. Marriage is a binding contract that has us promise to be a team.

Marriage is sexist. Marriage creates roles that are gender biased. You either get to do the husbandry things which mean you are responsible for ‘the care and conservation of resources” or the wife stuff, the care of heart, hearth and home. We don’t really know how to be partners or spouses. We don’t know what it looks like to parent as equals or manage two careers. We have a ton of work to do before we can share in both the worries of the big, outside world as well as the inner workings of sharing the emotional work of family.

Marriage is boring. People used to marry someone who lived in their own neighborhood, shared heritage and religion and background, maybe even shared cousins. They married and had kids and years were measured in how long they have remained alive more than how long they had stayed married. Life was simple and it just ain’t simple anymore. We’ve made it bigger and messier and much more complicated. We hate bored. We are drawn to better, new, bigger. We are driven to reinvent and keep things fresh and grow and grow some more.  We aren’t going to settle and marriage is going to have come along for the ride.

Marriage is hard. I don’t know if it used to be easier. I don’t know if people give up too easy or expect too much. I know people want to be married forever in a relationship that is healthy. I know that most people don’t want a marriage that looks like their parents and they don’t want to end up divorced. I know that marriage pain runs deep. I know deep down we want to be loved deeply. We want to know we picked well and that this person has our back. We want to know we are good at marriage, that we make our partner happy. We want to be happily married for ever and ever.

Happy National Marriage Week! I have no idea why we do it but we do. We’re in this together. We struggle. We screw up. We keep trying and we learn. Marriage is changing. The world of marriage we are leaving for our children is messy. We have to write our own rules and drag marriage into the 21st century. Congratulations wherever you are in the marriage journey. Cut yourself some slack- marriage today is nothing if not courageous.